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For my first big build of 2018 I've decided to resurrect the IBG Scammell Recovery vehicle build I started last year along with the old Airfix CMP build I started a while ago. Throw in a few figures and a base and I'm hoping it will be a good result. The idea is based upon this photo from the IWH site

I'm aiming to represent an Australian CMP having fallen into a waddi or depression in N Africa. The IBG Scammell kit comes with an option for South African Armoured Division in Egypt in 1944 but I'd prefer something earlier as the CMP kit has the option for a vehicle from the 9th Australian Div, 20th Anti Tank Battalion which was from 1942. However further research using the Capricorn Publications Scammell book

shows a very interesting scheme for a vehicle from the 7th Armoured Division in 1942 in a Caunter scheme

I must admit that is quite tempting to try As if I havn't made things hard enough for myself!!!!

So to start with here are some sprue shots of the old Airfix CMP kit

I won't be using the 6 lbr gun in this build, I've also got an old Airfix QL Portee kit in the stash which is missing its 6 lbr so that sprue in this kit has been donated to the Portee. I've also added some PE for the grille

Next we have the IBG Scammell Recovery

Now there has been a lot written about this kits inaccuracies, but frankly, I'm not that bothered. I'm more interested in telling an interesting story in the diorama to worry about how accurate the cab is etc. Most people won't know any difference. I've picked up the Accurate Armour WWII British Recovery Equipment set, plus some ResinCast PE Sand Channels and various chains, ropes, boxes, stowage and so on.

The base will be constructed from an old picture frame picked up at a charity shop, plus some plaster cast rocks, polystyrene packaging and plaster bandage plus my usual claycrete

The black things at the top are the rubber moulds for the plaster rock outcrops - they are designed for railway modellign but I've got a set of these moulds and they are very useful! I think the original picture in the frame is totally appropriate

As I mentioned before, both the Scammell and the CMP kit were started previously so here is the progress to date on each of them. First the CMP:

This has had the basic chassis built but I've modified the front wheel hubs so that they look damaged and broken. My aim is to show the CMP with damage to its front where its gone over the edge of the waddi. To this end, one of the wheels has had the moulded centre boss carefully removed as I aim to show this wheel having sheered off and deflated at the bottom of the waddi. This will require some scratch building on the hub to show the fittings for the wheel bolts which have sheered off. The other front tyre will also be deformed to look like its deflated. I'm going to try to do that with carefully applied heat... I'm rather nervous about that

I won't be using the tilt version - the kit comes with two options, covered or uncovered. I'm going to build it uncovered and then show the tilt as ripped and separate from the vehicle.

Next is the Scammell Recovery. This has had a few sub components built up and some painting done.

Finally (for now) I've started on the figures - at least selecting which ones to use from the plethora of potions, and partially assembled some of them.

From top left:

Aussie figure that comes with the CMP kit

From the British Jeep Crew standing with hand on hip (mmm ducky!)

From the British Armourd Car set, sitting down hand up to face

From the Commonwealth AFV Crew set, figure kneeling holding out a biscuit or something. His arm with a tea mug has been used elsewhere so will need replacing.

middle row:

From British Jeep crew, driver looking round. Both arms have been used elsewhere so will need replacing.

Aussie figure from the Allied Forces set - he won't be holding a Bren gun though.

Resin figure of soldier carrying flimsy from ResinCast

From the British Armoured Car crew, the bloke in shorts leaning against something with his foot raised

Bottom row:

From the British Jeep Crew, bloke putting his back into pushing something

Aussie heads and other heads to replace the kit originals.

So thats all there is to it! I also have a deadline of the second Monday in March to complete this as that is the date for the Member's Trophy comp at my model club whose theme this time round is dioramas!

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Progress from yesterday: lots of paint applied to the so far 9 figures to be included.

I tried to mix the khaki shades up a bit by mixing it with XF-59 Desert Yellow or XF-60 dark yellow. The flesh tones are Vallejo medium fleshtone with some basic fleshtone mixed in at times. Onto the Scammell and the rear desk has been built up, including a scratch built ladder, inspired by @Hewy in his build which is superb here

I aim to give this an initial 'green' paintjob before overpaint with sand and allowing chips to show through as I'm pretty sure this is how it would have been painted. By the way, I've decided not to go for the 'Caunter' colour scheme - this build is complicated enough as it is

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Ah this looks good, that photo at the start with the scammell recovering the carrier, crossed my mind for a diorama , i like your plan here, never knew about that book either, looks like a couple of nice schemes there, the wheel on top looks interesting,

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I was actually thinking of something similar for a 'set piece' in my Ever Evolving Diorama, a little scene where a Universal Carrier was pulling a crashed German BMW r75 and sidecar from a stream, presumably to 'appropriate' it for Allied use. I still might do that, if I can find the room for it on the base.

I am following with interest, especially how you manage to build up the ground level and give depth to the waddi. Good luck, have fun, and don't be afraid to 'let things evolve!'

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Yesterday and today the focus changed to the cab and first was the rear wall with the backrests and then the floor which has come control levers and the gear stick

The PE was no trouble to bend and fit - I dug out my bending tool but in the end didn't need it as my tweezers were good enough for these. Next came the front of the cab and the major inaccuracy of the kit, namely the angled window supports which don't bear any relation to reality. For this I took a leaf out of @Hewy book again and snipped the window frame bases and pushed them out a couple of millimetres, adding some plastic strip to the sides of the cab and adding 1mm wide bits of right angle channel into the gaps made in the frame between the upper and lower windows

This does mean I'll have to replace the transparencies with clear acrylic sheet, but I think this looks much better than the original. My next job was a bit more tricky as I want to show the driver's door open so this meant cutting the right side door out from the panel. I then had to repair the inner framework which is moulded wrong in the first place - the diagonal inner frame goes to the bottom of the whole side panel rather then to the bottom of the door.

Finally this evening I stuck the front and sides to the floor. This was complicated by the strips I'd added to the front now meaning the sides don't meet up with the angled floor as the kit is designed, so I had to add plastic strip shims to the front to give the side something to glue to rather than just the very back and front. This pic doesn't show it very well - I'll take another tomorrow of the underside to show what I mean properly.

Some duplicate figure kits arrived today as well for the British jeep crew, which means the driver now has arms and I'm waiting for a set of resin Aussie slouch hats to come over from Oz to provide appropriate head gear for the blokes standing around...

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Nicley done, it is a simple fix, and when it comes fitting the cab sides the 1mm each side i didn't have have any alignment issues or gaps, although i notice you've only cut out 1 door, so thats a grey area for me, liking it so far, one other thing, the gun rack, if you want put any rifles in it i had to lower mine down a few mm, don't know why, may have been me, but the barrel of the rifle fouled the roof, regards

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I wasn't sure whether I was going to put the rifles in there, however I'll take note of your suggestion

As promised here is the underside of the cab showing the plastic shims I've put in to provide a good anchor for the cab sides

I've been trying to work up some enthusiasm for working on it tonight but today I learned that the new CTO my company has hired, an acne ridden wet-behind-ears public school nobody (aka The Clerasil Kid) is unlikely to renew my contract this year at the end of February. The deal was SUPPOSED to be my 1 year contract was converted into a permanent role, but this waste of space arrived at the beginning of the month and has decided to out source all our software development to Bulgaria, in the process throwing away all the work my team have done over the years and starting again from scratch with a different platform and programming languages. The rest of my team are looking forward to at most 1 more year before they are made redundant but its most likely they'll all walk before then - with me being the first to exit.

So once again I'm looking for a job in February... this is the second time in 3 years my job has been outsourced by moronic money-grubbing executives - the previous company this happened to is now in major financial problems as the people they outsourced the work to are incapable of doing the job and its all falling apart! Shades of RBS lol

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The weekend seems to have flown by with only a few hours spent on the build. However, some important milestones have been reached - first is that the build of the subcomponents of the Scammell is done and its all ready for paint:

Of course as soon as I started painting, I discovered that I don't have enough XF-62 Olive Drab! So an order has been placed for more. In the meantime, build work has switched to the 15 cwt CMP, which if you remember had got as far as the chassis with some damage to the front wheels

So I next realised that I'd made a mistake when digging out the central hub of one of the wheels in that I did it to one of the rear wheels! That has now been rectified and the central hub of one of the front wheels has been cut out of the wheel and glued to the hub and some small rods have been added to represent the bolts that the wheel should have been attached to

These have been made different lengths to represent the sheering action that has taken the wheel off the hub. I'll dirty this area up a lot more to hide any inaccuracies. Now that is done I can look at continuing with the rest of the build. I still need to 'deflate' the tyres, but I think I'll try then when I'm not totally bunged up with a cold.

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Well progress has come to a juddering halt due to going down with the horrible lurgy thats going round which has basically put me on my back for 3 days and I'm only now beginning to get over it! The last but of progress was Sunday night when I began constructing the base and laying out the scene. This is as far as I got, using polystyrene packing blocks kept from a delivery a while back, plus some plaster of paris cast rocks

The next step should be to coat this in my usual claycrete, but I've been too unwell to bother with that, so its been stuck at this stage for a week.

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So today I decided it was time to mix up the claycrete and paint and get on with the landscape, and I've very pleased I did because I seemed to get a good bit of work done and the end results looks pretty good to my eye. Its still drying - the claycrete can take several days to fully dry, but so far its looking very promising...

The plaster rocks are showing through very well, giving a nice contrast to the sandy surface. I've added lots of small grass tufts of varying tones, plus some smaller stones to poke out of the surface in some places. Once the upper surface is dryer, I'll be adding some smoother sandy texture for the roadway and putting some tyre tracks in, along with an attempt to represent a skid and damage to the ground where the CMP went over the edge, but I need the surface to be dryer than it stands currently